Dads Throughout History Series – Part 5
George Darling – The Father Who Grew Up Too Fast
We’ve been watching Disney’s 1953 adaptation of Peter Pan in my home a lot lately. My sons have quickly taken a shine to Peter Pan’s playful nature, and they’re already integrating Captain Hook and the Lost Boys into their own adventures. As an adult viewer, I’m relating not to the title character as much as I am George Darling, Wendy, John, and Michael’s father.
At the beginning of the film, George and Mary are getting ready to leave for George’s work party, however they’re delayed by the children and Nana the nursemaid dog doing normal kid and dog stuff. George fusses around the nursery looking for his shirt and gold cufflinks, only to trip over Nana, slip on a car, and then go sailing into a corner, knocking toys and Nana to the floor. Mary and the children sigh in disbelief and run to tend to—not Daddy, but Nana.
George basically loses it at this point. He declares this Wendy’s last night in the nursery and hauls Nana outside. I get George. He’s looking for a little sympathy. He wants his family to respect him, and for his children to grow up just a little. I feel his pain. It’s challenging to be an adult with little ones in your orbit.
In the original story Peter and Wendy, J.M. Barrie depicts George Darling fixed on the financial implications of having children, and also dismisses the stories of Peter Pan, yet he’s saddened when the children disappear to Neverland.
Putting aside the macabre references of losing children (e.g. Neverland) in Barrie’s seminal work, and the many misogynistic and culturally inappropriate scenes in the Disney version, George Darling learns his lesson in the end. Don’t grow up too fast. I’ve been meditating on this concept a lot in light of the impatience I have too often for my kids.
What George Darling teaches all fathers is not to forget what it means to be a child. This comes, however, with a condition: while it’s good and honorable to embody the lighthearted nature of children, we grownups can easily revert to the worst of childhood—being a brat.
The worst thing we can do for our wives is leave them with more children to tend to. Fathers ought to model their children’s innocence, spontaneity, and humor, but we should never let our small rages get the best of us. If we can embody the ethos of a child, but exclude their often inexplicable petulance, then we will, as fathers, never have to grow up.
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Photo from Neverpedia